Department of personnel and administrative reforms (P&AR) on Thursday clarified certain allegations pertaining to the recently declared LDA exam results, that appeared in a local daily on November 2.Responding to allegations that the recent LDA exam results had loopholes as 359 candidates were called for interview against 93 vacancies, thereby exceeding the indicated ratio of 3:1, the P&AR senior research officer Nchumbemo Lotha in a press statement clarified that LDA exam was not an exception to that of other competitive exams. He said that in competitive exams, with a large number of examinees, there was a crowding of candidates for each mark secured excepting at the very top where some gap exists. The statement explained that more than 80 candidates had secured the same cut-off mark required to maintain 3:1 ratio.The officer said in order to ensure fairness, all those candidates had to be called for interview, leading to a nearly 4:1 ratio. On doubts raised over allocation of departments, the officer said a roster was drawn with departments listed in alphabetical order and that candidates were allotted to departments as per the roster. The roster, he said was prepared in order of merit to ensure that there was even distribution of meritorious candidates in all the departments.In the case of candidates called for interview against backward reserved quotas, the P&AR research officer said the ratio of candidates called for interview to the number of available posts has increased to more than 5:1 because as many as 87 backward candidates who qualified for interview against open quota were also called for interview against the reserved quota.On allegations that candidates have been called for interview on a post-wise basis and not department basis, by citing example of 27 vacancies in treasury & accounts department, only three candidates each have been called for 16 posts, the officer said candidates were called on a department-wise basis and not post-wise.He added that in the case of treasury & accounts department, 100 candidates have been called for interview against 27 posts.